The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Kings — Section 166

And in silence, too, is this planet sustained and ordered. How " silently the springtime Her crown of verdure weaves, And o.11 the trees on all the bills Open their thousand leaves." Or as another, not less beautifully, puts it- " Soundless as cha.riots on the snow The saplings of the forest grow To trees of mighty girth : Each nightly sta.r in silence b1lrlll, And every day in silence turns The axle of the earth. "'The silent frost, with mighty band, Fetters the rivers and the land With universal cha.in ; And, smitten by the silent sun, The chain is loosed, the rivers run, The lands are free age.in." But for the discordant din of men, and but for the voices of beasts and birds, this earth would be a temple of ·silence. And it is in the silence that God reveals Himself. Not in the great and strong wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice (1 Kings xix. 12, 13). '' Let us be silent," says one, "that we may hear the whispers of the gods." In the silence, too, His Church has grown. His kingdom " cometh not with observation" (Luke xvii. 20). A.53 silently as the seed grows, day and night, in the soil; as silently as the leaven works in the meal. And in the silence our Holy Lord will come again-as a thief in the night, as a snare, as the lightning. v. THAT ALL THE EARTII SHOULD KEEP SILENCE BEFORE Hm (Hab. ii. 20). It is not meant to preach here II the eternal duty of silence," nor that all worship should be "of the silent sort;" but that, in realizing the awful presence of God, men should be hushed into the profoundest awe. When we do " take upon our- selves to speak unto our Lord," we should remember that" we are but dust and ashes " (Gen. xviii. 27). Our finger on our lips, our lips in the dust. It was this feeling, in part, led Solomon to build the temple in silence. And the feeling which found this expression in act he has elsewhere translated in words (see Eccles. v. 1, 2). It was with a similar feeling that our Lord acted (Mark xi. 16). And it is significant that we read of" silence in heaven" (Rev. vili. 1). VI. THAT Goo's WORK MUST BE DONE IN SILENCE. "All real work is qniet work.· It must be unobtrusive if it is to be fruitful. " The temple wo.s thrown down with axes and hammers, and they that did it roared in the midst of the congregation (Psa. lxxiv. 4, 6), but it was built up in silence" (M. Henry). A temple of the Lord, a temple of" living stones," is now being built. "0 God, that the axes of schism or the hammers of furious contention should be heard within Thy sanctuary" (Hall). It is because of our unseemly cries and wranglings, because of the clash of contro- versy and the shouts of heated partizans, that this temple has made such poor progress. Not until we have been first hushed into ailence oo.n the headstone be brought forth with ahouting·(Zech. iv. 7). Ver. 2; cf. vi. 16.-The Holy of Holies and the Heaven of Heavens. El..3e- where (pp. 99, 112) we have spoken of the co1Tespondence of the Jewish temple with the Christian Church. But let us now trace a truer ancl higher resemblance. For the Epistle to the Hobrews tells us that the "holy places made with hands" o.re "the figures (tivrirvrra, i.e., copies) of the true " (Heb. ix. 24). The temple of Solomon, therefore, must correspond to things in the heavens. It does this, W'tlt, in its structure; secondly, in its furniture; thirdly, in its services.  166 THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [oil. VIII. 1-66.